Annet Dekker (ed.): Speculative Scenarios, or What Will Happen to Digital Art in the (Near) Future? (2013)

There is a growing understanding of the use of technological tools for dissemination or mediation in the museum, but artistic experiences that are facilitated by new technologies are less familiar. Whereas the artworks’ presentation equipment becomes obsolete and software updates change settings and data feeds that are used in artworks, the language and theory relating to these works is still being formulated. To better produce, present and preserve digital works, an understanding of their history and the material is required to undertake any in-depth inquiry into the subject.

In an attempt to fill some gaps the authors in this publication discuss digital aesthetics, the notion of the archive and the function of social memory. These essays and interviews are punctuated by three future scenarios in which the authors speculate on the role and function of digital arts, artists and art organisations.

The book is a sequel to Archive2020 – Sustainable Archiving of Born-Digital Cultural Content, edited by Annet Dekker in 2010.

With contributions by Christiane Berndes (Van Abbemuseum), Sarah Cook (CRUMB), Annet Dekker (aaaan.net), Sandra Fauconnier (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen), Olga Goriunova (University of Warwick), Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton), Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum), Richard Rinehart (Samek Art Gallery), Edward Shanken (DXARTS University of Washington), Jill Sterrett (SFMOMA), Nina Wenhart (independent researcher), Layna White (SFMOMA).

Publisher Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven, August 2013
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
144 pages

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Sensate: A Journal for Experiments in Critical Media Practice (2012-)

Sensate is a peer-reviewed, issueless, open-access, media-based journal for the creation, presentation, and critique of innovative projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Its mission is to provide a scholarly and artistic forum for experiments in critical media practices that expand academic discourse by taking us beyond the margins of the printed page. Fundamental to this expansion is a re-imagining of what constitutes a work of scholarship or art.

Editors-in-Chief: Lindsey Lodhie, Peter McMurray, Joana Pimenta, and Elizabeth Watkins
Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license

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Catherine Karen Roy: File-based Autobiographies After 1989 (2011)

“This study analyzes four autobiographical accounts written after the fall of the Berlin Wall by former data subjects, i.e., by individuals who have been under the surveillance of the East German Stasi (Staatssicherheit). Following a suggestion by Cornelia Vismann, I refer to these texts as “file-based autobiographies.” The term reflects the fact that they were written in response to the opening of the Stasi archives and the passing of the Stasi Files Act, which allowed data subjects to access their files. By constructing narratives using files written and compiled by informers and secret police officials rather than relying on their own, personal memories, these data subjects challenge the traditional aesthetics of autobiographies and subvert the usual expectations of autobiographical reading. “File-based autobiographies” constitute nothing less than a new autobiographical sub-genre. Rather than offering a personal story that begins in early childhood and ends later in life, data subjects engage in a revision of their lives using files written by a hostile third party. The four case studies show how people under surveillance may need to draw on such documents, even if they are inaccurate, in order to support their claims of authenticity and thus fulfill the autobiographical pact. In this way, these autobiographers acquire and re-functionalize the hostile documents, thus challenging the original purposes for which the files were kept. They show that using their files not only results in unexpected memory processes, but is also a political and literary process that supports their personal agendas and targets particular audiences. Access to and subsequent use of their files gives them the authority to discuss their reaction to the opening of the Stasi files as well as the records themselves.”

Doctoral thesis
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, October 2011
230 pages

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